Financial Survival: Ways to Make Money Without the Man. Post Yours!

Sell your kidney

all i got sorry

I need big money fast.

No way to get it.

What a bummer.

Lets hope something devastating happens in the U.S. so that then everyone is forced on an even playing field.

Here is an idea...

Become a one-hit wonder in the music world. Surely most people can squeeze out one classic song. Then you'll become a millionaire.

Great topic !

I scrap metal here in my small town in Montana but its harder and harder to get a good load going.

Saved me lots of times.

I am not good at arts and crafts or anything skill related but Farmers markets can be a good choice if you like gardening or selling things like special jerky recipes and dehydrated foods.

Anything beyond crafting/skill trade/ or working a career or job would be illegal so unless you want the corrupt law systems lackeys making money off of their prison stocks which in America is a growth industry stay on the narrow.

reply to post by WarJohn


There you go become a lyracist. Most of the songs on the radio I could write in one sitting on the porcelain throne.

Just make sure most of it rhymes, and has lots of repitition (same "hooks" or chorus over and over and over and over again to make sure people cant think of anything but it). If youre writing it for a specific 'singer' make sure their own name is mentioned (the more times the better). Nowadays you can even smear the english language and mash words into sounding like others to pull off the rhymes. Easiest job in the world, but you might have to do some unsavory things to get your lyrics picked, and make sure there are no recording devices in the room or they might try and blackmail you out of your cut and more.

Busk: I see them all the time, but make sure you can perform because the more boring you are the less money you'll receive.

Picking: Buy stuff from Garage sales, Flea markets, second hand stores etc. and re-sell on ebay for more. One guy I saw on youtube spends $20USD a week and triples his money on ebay. You would need to invest a bit of time looking and not just buy any old items. I'd suggest having a smartphone with the eBay app to see how much items go for that you find.

Start a business: I've heard of people starting small businesses in University when they were short on money. One person I read about started a business that sells things like cups and gifts. She ended up making a big business out of it and earnt money to get through University and have money left over.

All I've got so far, will think of more.

Maximizing your dumpster diving profits and potential:

If you live in a large city with many Colleges and Universities you are in luck. What you want to do is find out when they have the last day of school. Armed with that date, you will locate the dorm facilities and private apartment houses near each school. Then you will check the dumpsters daily for the last two weeks of school. Kids throw away EVERYTHING. I have found in good shape furniture of every description, lamps, appliances, books, clothes, towels, cameras, radios, computers.

My younger brother, God rest his soul, used to do this in Colorado Springs with his street friends. They would commandeer some shopping carts, raid the dumpsters, then make the rounds of pawn shops trying to sell it all. If they had tried to yard sale the stuff, they would have done much better.

OP, can you teach me how to "MOW LAWS" please!!!!

That being said, I sent this thread to my wife. She has been doing lots of crafts she has been finding on sites such as pinterest and youtube and such. Please keep the info coming though. Some great ideas in here.

Also growing aloe vera is REALLY easy for some reason. just break a piece off, put it in even shallow soil and they just grow with a bit of water. Plus the benefits of the plant are numerous....so even if you don't sell its worth it to have (bug bites, sunburn, internal cleansing etc)

Great thread, OP!

I've been selling art on Etsy for awhile now, but in this economy, it's not exactly a big wealth-builder.

Thanks for the new ideas and inspiration to do something new! I've been thinking about writing a book, but I haven't for fear of never finding a publisher that would pay anything halfway decent. You've inspired me to check it out! Thanks!

Awesome thread!

You rock pretty hard yourself, Sister.

Growing food and making art for trade is my bag.

Make an app:Been researching and found that teens at the ages of 17 are experimenting with iPhone apps and making money from them. I'd say if you have an iPhone/smartphone there'd be something you wish it had (like an ATS app - anyone?)

Recycle:I think this has been said (unsure - sorry), but this is another method to make money. I see elderly people doing it, homeless people even, riding on bikes with huge bags full of cans, bottles, etc. Can't guarantee you'd make a fortune but an hour a day collecting from bins, or even just building up on recycables that you consume, would make some kind of money. Over here in Australia you earn 10c per can/bottle. 10 Bottles = $1, 100 = $10, 1000 = $100. Not bad if done daily for a week, you could easily earn an extra hundred (could be different in other countries).

Cooking:Cook and sell at markets and things. Buy a cart and make burgers down the street. I see a guy who makes vegetarian burgers and always has a plethora of customers sitting/standing around eating and waiting for a burger. I always see him at the markets too, with the same deal, a huge line-up. If you have an amazing family recipe, make it and ask around at locally run shops to see what they think of your product. They may just sell it for you.

More to come.

Sell Belongings: Have a huge amount of clothes/unwanted gear you want rid of? Sell it online or better yet at a local market. This can be applied to the cooking idea above as well. Maybe you are an artist? Sell your pieces. Know how to make jam? Have a girlfriend who is into fashion and wants clothes gone?

More to come.

More Ways to Make Money

I've recently discovered MTurk, or Mechanical Turk, brought to you by Amazon. This is a crowdsourcing platform that offers tasks to users from $0.01 per task to over $100.00 per task. I tried this out and here is what I found out.

First, there is a learning curve. After I signed up, very simple, I had to read which tasks were available to me (called HITS) and decide which ones I wanted to accept. This takes awhile, but you can see how once you've done some work you will know which types of tasks you like to do and who you want to work for.

I found there were two ways to go about this. One would be to find one big job and do it. The big jobs I saw were writing and transcription. You'd probably need experience for either one. The other would be to find a tiny job with lots of HITs available and do those. I focused on tiny jobs since I was just testing the site. Examples of tiny jobs:

Typing out all the text you see on a coupon, usually 4 to 6 lines. Pay ranged from $0.05 to $0.10 per coupon, and you can do a lot in an hour.

Typing out all the text you see on a receipt. Pay ranged from $0.08 to $0.20. Receipts can be really long. I did a couple of these and they aren't what I would choose to do if I had to make money on MTurk.

Rewriting or writing a few words, less than 100. Pay ranged from $0.25 to $1.00. I did a few dollar HITs for a guy that were re-writing (I assume to be posted on his blog or something) and managed to get seven done in an hour. So, $7.00 an hour rate of pay there.

Going over photos and checkmarking the ones which are inappropriate. Pay ranged from $0.02 to $0.10.

And last, looking at photos and determining how many persons were in an image or some such. Indoors or outdoors was another I tried, just flag if it's an inside or outside picture.

My results were, after messing around on the site for approximately 11 hours (I was going really slow though guys) I made $92.00. So if you divide that out, I made a little over $8.00 per hour while sitting on my butt at home.

There is an addon a person can get for their browser called TurkOpticon and it will allow you to see Requestor (that's the person offering the job) Ratings. Obviously, this is important to works because you won't want to work for someone who is rated poorly for paying. It would really suck to spend 30 minutes working on a task for $3.00 only to find out that the Requestor is an idiot who rejected you for some false reason. If you are going to use MTurk I highly suggest getting that addon before you do so you don't waste your time with scammy people. If you see a scammer, there is a Report button you can use.

You get paid by Amazon Payments, that thing Amazon has which is like Paypal. The Requestor will approve your work and then you get the payment in your account. Very easy and it took a couple days before everyone approved my stuff, but I already got my $92.00 and withdrew it to my real bank account.

My overall opinion is that I don't think this is some fabulous way to make money or anything, but hey, if you've applied for a bunch of jobs and are just sitting on your butt, or you are disabled in some way, you can definitely make something here. I figure if I tried to do this for a few hours every day working on small payout HITs I could probably pull in like $200 or $250 a week.

Great for an unemployed, disabled, or employed but below the hours they want person. I will answer any questions I have based on my limited experience with MTurk, feel free to PM me about this or any other money making idea I've listed.

Not really making money per se, but a good way to stretch it...

BARTER

Here in the country, we do a lot of this. Someone has something you want, you have something they want...work out a deal. We've bartered for hay, a rabbit hutch, fencing, and all kinds of other things vs. spending cash for them.

While my wife and I both work 9-5 jobs, we do a lot on the side for income...

We have a saddle/tack shop connected to the house, and sell new and used horse need items.
We board horses (and even a pig).
We sometimes do custom painted murals for clients.
We sometimes do decorated cakes for clients.
I do photo-realistic portraits on the side.
We sometimes do horse transport with our trailer.
We recycle our soda cans.

We really need to organize our old junk and really have a huge yard sale.

sell your wife

reply to post by spartacus699


Unless you live in Nevada, or many European nations, pretty sure that's illegal...

Go around and collect all the bottles and cans out of the recycling. I know some guys who can fill up 2 shopping cards in 2 hours and make about 150 dollars. Not bad for a couple hours work.

a reply to: Ameilia

Excellent post S&F for you!!!

a reply to: Ameilia

Awesome thread idea, sorry it took me 4 + years to discover it.

Deserves more attention, as it's still useful today.

I've got a few ideas I've been working with on the drawing board that haven't been mentioned in here yet, at least not specifically though a few are quasi-mentioned. I'll come back and add one or two later to share...

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Matched betting a reply to: Ameilia